As of the writing of this post, 716 skills were added to or updated in the Alexa Skill Store over the past 7 days. And over 3,000 were added or updated in the last 30 days.
I went through close to one thousand of these skills. I looked at every new or updated skill with one or more reviews. And I looked at hundreds without any reviews at all hoping to find some hidden gems (a not-too-surprising side note: turns out that if a skill creator hasn’t even bothered to ask a friend or parent to write a review, the skill is generally bound to be pretty weak).
These are my picks for the 8 best new skills and skill updates.
Best New Skills
1. Best Overall: Choose Your Own Adventure
- You decide what comes next in Choose Your Own Adventure stories for The Abominable Snowman and Journey Under the Sea
- 4.3 stars | 26 reviews
- High quality production value with professional voice narrators and cool sound effects
- Great for kids
- Free
- Launched in past few weeks
What do I get from using this skill?
Listen to a classic audiobook as an an active participant where you are in charge of what happens at decision points.
For example, the first decision point I reached in The Abominable Snowman was “do you search below in the valley or search above basecamp?” I decided to search above basecamp, and the story continued from there.
There are 28 endings for the Abominable Snowman and 37 for Journey Under the Sea, which means lots of opportunities to experiment with different choices.
VoiceBrew take
I love this skill! It’s extremely high quality — in the actual stories, production value and ease with which the listener gets to make the decisions.
It’s nice that you can pause, and the skill will remember where you left off in the story. It will also keep track of how many endings you’ve discovered and encourage you to listen again and try making different decisions.
What I like best about the concept of Choose Your Own Adventure is that it takes the familiar experience of reading a book and makes it more multi-dimensional by adding the ability to be an active participant via Alexa. Try this skill with your kids for story time — I think they’ll love it!
I expect that we’ll be seeing more stories added soon.
2. Best Game: My Spaceship
- An engaging and sophisticated game where your goal is to keep your crew alive long enough to discover the secrets of the universe
- 4.7 stars | 20 reviews
- Free
- Launched in January 2019
What do I get from using this skill?
Play an engaging, yet also relaxing, game that takes place in a distant and unfamiliar future in outer space.
As your ship moves through space, you come upon different scenarios — an asteroid is about to hit or you just encountered another ship carrying slaves and must choose whether to buy their freedom. With your ship’s AI assistant as your guide, your goal is to make smart decisions to survive and advance up the ranks.
VoiceBrew take
I was impressed by this game. Most important, the scenarios you are presented with are actually interesting, and there are 60 of them according to the skill’s description.
It’s easy to learn to play as you go — how to evaluate different risks to make better decisions and how those decisions can impact fuel and food reserves and the morale of the crew.
If you prove yourself, you can reach the rank of Admiral which unlocks even more scenarios — racing space shuttles, passing judgment on alien criminal cases and even acting as an inter-species Ambassador for the human race. I only made it to Captain and then Commodore, but Admiral sounds like even more fun!
Lastly, I like the AI assistant who leads you through the game. She shows some personality with a few good lines and a robot voice that’s different from Alexa.
3. Best for Kids: Teach Me Tables
- Helps kids learn math times tables in a new, interactive and fun way
- 5 stars | 5 reviews
- Free
- Launched in past few weeks
- Pro Tip: You’ll need to enable this skill in the Alexa app before you can open it with a voice command (sometimes you can just open popular skills with a voice command even if you haven’t enabled them through the app, but that doesn’t work for all the newer skills)
What do I get from using this skill?
Help your kids learn their times tables based on proven teaching techniques.
VoiceBrew take
With this skill, Alexa transforms learning times tables from a chore into a pretty fun game (I say “pretty fun” because it’s times tables after all).
I think this skill is well done. I tested it by doing my 9’s times tables. The skill started me with the 1 x 9 up to 5 x 9 block and then moved to the 6 x 9 to 10 x 9 block. It gave me a quiz — which felt more like a game — after each block. You don’t feel rushed to answer, and if you take a while Alexa gently prompts you.
When I got a quiz answer right, I earned 10 points — but even better, I got encouragement from Alexa in the form of “booya!” and “zinga!” pronouncements, which I enjoyed. There’s even some surprising humor — in response to one of my correct answers, Alexa at first pretended I was wrong then acknowledged I got it right. Haha.
4. Best for Adults: Adult Humor Jokes
- Want some laughs? Let the Adult Humor skill bring you some fun
- 5 stars | 3 reviews
- Hear funny marriage/adult jokes with customized voice effects
- Free
- Launched in February 2019
- Pro Tip: You’ll need to enable this skill in the Alexa app before you can open it with a voice command
What do I get from using this skill?
Just say “Alexa, open Adult Humor” and you’ll hear a funny joke.
You can save jokes to your favorites list if you want to hear them again later. Say “add to favorite list” right after the joke plays.
VoiceBrew take
While it’s a simple skill, the jokes were (mostly) actually funny. And, while some of the jokes are “mature” (in Amazon’s words), it’s the harmless type of humor. I got one joke about a husband and wife in which the wife says I love you, but she’s talking to her wine. Another joke was more dirty and involved Santa and his “ho’s.”
I like that the skill lets you add jokes to a favorites list so you can pull them up later for your partner or a friend to hear.
5. Best Hidden Gem: Make a Freestyle Rap
- Want to hear Alexa do an original “freestyle” rap?
- 5 stars | 1 review
- Skill creator is a “basement tinkerer” trying to give Alexa some more personality (this skill is a work in progress according to its description)
- Free
- Launched in past few weeks
- Pro Tip: You’ll need to enable this skill in the Alexa app before you can open it with a voice command
What do I get from using this skill?
You get a very entertaining 45 seconds listening to Alexa perform an original freestyle rap.
VoiceBrew take
While it’s a work in progress and currently only has one rap in its repertoire, it’s worth a listen if you’re in the mood for something silly.
6. Best for Safety: Hurricane Alerts by American Red Cross
- Keep up to date on the latest hurricane alerts relevant to your location
- 5 stars | 1 review
- Free
- Launched in past few weeks
What do I get from using this skill?
Receive push notifications for hurricane alert information, ask for the latest hurricane information and learn essential steps to take if a hurricane watch affects you.
Pro Tip: Be sure to grant this skill access to your address and the ability to send you notifications so that it can give you the latest hurricane warnings as they come in. Open the Alexa app > tap the hamburger icon in the upper left corner > tap Skills & Games > search for “Hurricane Alerts” > tap “Hurricane Alerts by American Red Cross” > tap the Settings button > tap Manage Permissions > in the Skill Permissions page, check off Device Address and Alexa Notifications > tap Save Permissions button.
VoiceBrew take
If you live in an area affected by hurricanes, you should enable this skill because the Red Cross is a reliable source for up-to-date hurricane information. The skill really only works if you follow the Pro Tip steps above so that it knows your location and can proactively push hurricane alert information to you.
Best Skill Updates
7. Best Overall: My Better Nutrition
- Ask nutrition questions as they arise to help make better food choices on the go (even at the gas station!) and at home
- 4.9 stars | 77 reviews (that’s really good!)
- Daily nutrition tips, product recommendations, recipes and even pep talks
- Free
What do I get from using this skill?
Get answers to questions like…
- “What is a better alcohol for weight loss?” (The answer I got is that while wine and beer contain plant nutrients that can be helpful, vodka is lower in sugar — but not if you add a sugary mixer. Sounds about right!)
- “What breakfast will give me more energy?”
- “What should I eat at a gas station?”
- Or even “Do you have hemp pesto recipe?” (I never even knew hemp pesto was a thing!)
What’s new?
With its recent update, the skill can now answer 200 more questions. Newly added questions cover topics like kids’ nutrition, nutrition to help cure your cold, better on-the-go options and better nutrition for guys.
VoiceBrew take
I found the answers to be helpful, sensible — even creative in some cases — and, most importantly, applicable to real life. I also like that the daily nutrition tip is read by a real person, presumably the skill creator/dietician Ashley.
Today’s tip was about aquafaba (which I learned is the liquid that comes with canned chickpeas!) and how to use it as a healthy egg substitute in recipes for things like meringues and mousses that call for eggs. I probably won’t ever actually use aquafaba instead of eggs, but it was still interesting to learn about it.
Although the skill can text you a link to The Better Nutrition Program website where you can find various pieces of information, I wish that it could text me links to specific recipes (like the hemp pesto) instead of reading them out.
8. Best for Kids: Freeze Dancers
- Dance when the music plays, freeze when the music stops!
- 3.9 stars | 93 reviews
- Great for family fun with silly sound effects for kids
- Free
What do I get from using this skill?
It’s the classic freeze dance but with a silly twist for kids. You get to dance like you’re holding a really heavy watermelon… or like you’re a cucumber… or doing salsa moves.
What’s new?
This skill was updated in January 2019 with new dance moves and music.
VoiceBrew take
It’s a simple skill, but kids seem to love it based on the reviews. And I can see why.
Plus, since Alexa starts and stops the music (instead of mom or dad sitting out the game to do it), everyone can play. It’s a great concept for an Alexa skill.
That said, I think the skill could be even better. I wish it had more variety — in music, dance moves and silly phrases Alexa says when you did a good job or messed up because someone moved. Also, it would would add a fun dimension if the skill awarded points for rounds where no one moved. Although on second thought this is probably just the adult in me talking, as the skill can definitely be thoroughly enjoyed purely for its entertainment value. It doesn’t need to be a game if it can give you 20 minutes of fun with your kids.